Mongolia Has To Change Its Railroads To Account For An 85 Millimeter Difference In Track Spacing

This picture shows the
difference in size between the Standard Gauge and the Russian
Gauge.Wikimedia Common/Business
Insider

The planned extension of a trans-border railway in Mongolia will
make it faster and cheaper to ship coal to China.

Currently, most coal from Mongolian mines is transported to the
Chinese border by trucks on paved roads. The railroad would be a
less costly shipping method, but until now, a tiny difference in
the spacing of rails has made this a less viable option.

Mongolia and China use two different rail gauges. Mongolia's
1,520 millimeter broad gauge dates back the Soviet-era. China
uses the slightly smaller 1,435 millimeter standard gauge, 85
millimeters narrower than the rail gauge used in Mongolia.

Using the broad gauge rail will cost $3 more per ton
of coal than the standard gauge, but "the overall
cost of exporting coal by rail will [still] be 60 percent, or $14
per ton, lower than the current method of exporting by truck,"
Bloomberg writes.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Dale Choi, founder of
Ulaanbaatar-based Independent Mongolian Metals and Mining
Research, suggested that Mongolia's decision to stick with the
broad gauge was related to issues of national security.

“The business community would have preferred the standard
gauge,” Choi told Bloomberg last May. “I guess the geo-political
consideration is much more important to authorities.”

Mongolia was
under Chinese rule from 1691 to 1911 and the two countries share
a large border. Although the BBC notes that both nations have
"managed to
overcome historical tensions" while strengthening their
business relationship, fears about China's economic dominance in
the region do not seem to have completely
dissipated.

Khaltmaa Battulga, chairman of the Mongolian
Democratic Union, an opposition party, publicly denounced the
project. According
to Business News Europe, Battulga said on a
TV show in June that, “Tanks can easily penetrate into
Mongolia in no time if we build a railway with a [narrower] gauge
track, the same used in China.”

Business News Europe explains:

This minor detail represents a huge technical barrier between the
two countries, since each train crossing the border is forced to
make long stops to change the wheels. But while Mongolia's
growing army of mining companies consider it a logistics
bottleneck, Mongolians themselves see it as a matter of national
sovereignty – a necessary shield protecting their sparsely
populated homeland and its vast mineral resources from the
ever-present “Chinese threat.”

According to the report, Mongolian president Tsakhiagiin
Elbegdorj was critical of Battulga's comments, as it
jeopardized Mongolia's efforts to improve its economic
partnership with China.

Meanwhile, the Mongolian Ministry of Roads and Transportation and
JSC Russian Railways agreed in September to extend the main
trans-Mongolian railway to increase trade between Russia and
China.

Here's a map of the proposed updated rail system:

The Mongolian Rail system
with planned upgrades and extensions. The extension to Russia in
the north is highlighted in blue in blue and the rail to China in
the south is in yellow.Aspire
Mining